PANTHEON:

"Dionysos with his Maenad crew . . ."

Dionysos, the god of the vine, invented wine and spread the art of tending grapes. He has a dual nature, on the one hand bringing joy and divine ecstasy, on the other brutal, unthinking rage and madness--thus reflecting both sides of wine's nature. No normal fetters can hold him or his followers, the Maenads.

Dionysos wandered the world actively encouraging his cult. He was accompanied by the Maenads--wild women, flush with wine, shoulders draped with a fawn skin, carrying rods tipped with pine cones (the thyrsos). While other gods had temples the followers of Dionysos worshipped him in the woods. Here they might go into mad states where they would rip apart and eat raw any animal--or person--they came upon.

Dionysos is the son of Zeus and Semele, a mortal parent. Zeus came to Semele in the night, invisible. Semele was pleased to be a lover of a god, even though she did not know which one. Word soon got around to Hera, who quickly figured out who was responsible. Hera went to Semele in disguise and convinced her she should see her lover as he really was. When Zeus next came to her she made him swear on the River Styx to grant her one request. Oaths taken by the River Styx are unbreakable, binding even Zeus. They are not to be made lightly. Semele asked her lover to show her his true form. Zeus, having no choice, appeared in his true form. Semele was instantly incinerated by the sight of his glory. Zeus did manage to rescue the unborn child, and stitched him into his thigh to hold him until he was ready to be born (there is much Freudian speculation about this); hence Dionysos is called "Insewn" in some translations of the Homeric Hymns. His birth from Zeus was sufficient to confer immortality upon him, despite his beginnings in a mortal mother's womb. He was raised by mountain nymphs, protected from Hera's revenge.

There are those who discount the story of Dionysos as Zeus-born and rank him as the most primal of gods.

The Bacchae's Chorus

Chorus
He is sweet in the mountains , whenever after the running dance he falls on the ground, wearing the sacred garment of fawn skin, hunting the blood of the slain goat, a raw-eaten delight, rushing to the Phrygian, the Lydian mountains, and the leader of the dance is Bromius, evoe! The plain flows with milk, it flows with wine, it flows with the nectar of bees. The Bacchic one, raising the flaming torch of pine on his thyrsos, like the smoke of Syrian incense, darts about, arousing the wanderers with his racing and dancing, agitating them with his shouts, casting his rich locks into the air. And among the Maenad cries his voice rings deep: "Go, Bacchae, go, Bacchae, with the luxury of Tmolus that flows with gold, sing of Dionysos, beneath the heavy beat of drums, celebrating in delight the god of delight with Phrygian shouts and cries, when the sweet-sounding sacred pipe sounds a sacred playful tune suited to the wanderers, to the mountain, to the mountain!" And the Bacchante, rejoicing like a foal with its grazing mother, rouses her swift foot in a gamboling dance.
Euripides Bacchae ll. 135-165

Walk like a Maenad

Pentheus
But shall I be more like a maenad holding the thyrsos in my right hand, or in my left?

Dionysos
You must hold it in your right hand and raise your right foot in unison with it.
Euripides Bacchae c. l. 940 -- back to where we were

Homeric Hymn to Dionysos

Be favorable, O Insewn, Inspirer of frenzied women! We singers sing of you as we begin and as we end a strain, and none forgetting you may call holy song to mind.
(c. l. 20) -- back to where we were

source: Perseus Project

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